Chapter 24
by Puckoberon
Summary: Everyone wonders what happened at the last, and here is my own take at the mysterious ending. hints of supernatural. Oneshot.


First thing Jonas became certain he was aware of was color. They swirled around them brighter than he had ever seen them, and there were even more than he had ever recalled seeing. Secondly he heard whispering laughter, voices raised high, sounding so rich, and lovely that it must have been singing. Thirdly he became aware that there wasn't really a him or Gabriel so to speak.

They had no body to speak of, but seemed to be composed of mostly of being, mostly of raw feeling. It was extremely disorienting for him. He suspected even the Giver would have felt out of place in this swirling mass of color and song. In awe of, but out of place. It was also strange how immensely larger Gabriel was then him.

He only had a few more moments to ponder this before they was shoot back into being. At first he didn't know what was happening, it felt like a tingling, which in its self was strange to him in this state, then suddenly reality trickled in slowly around him.

Their surroundings materialized first, like trickling sand, every little thing falling into place just right to paint the perfect picture.

There was thousands of people all garbed in beautiful strange cloths with never ending differences swarming in front of them, going along a dark concrete path. Every so often a Glowing figure of a hand would come up on a square box high up and the people would stop, and allow a mass of hulking, brightly colored meatal objects go forward at a pace far faster than his bike could ever go_. Cars_, his mind supplied.

Around them were people sitting in the same different garbs, around many different tables, all under huge, beautiful, dark blue umbrellas, a thing he only knew from the memories, and they were eating food he had never known. They were all talking and it turned into a stunning jumbled up mess of sound.

Finally they to materialized.

They were standing among the walking people, but he was no longer as big as he should have been, at most he was the size of when he was a six, and even then he was a little too small. Suddenly he became aware that Gabriel was still _very_ much larger than him or, in this case, older. Gabriel looked down on him, his lips curling into a grin. His eyes and hair were nearly the same honey color, which was strange seeing as they were blue the last he saw of them. But the eyes Gabriel hand now his had a humorous quality with a dash of mischief in them that not even Asher possessed, that made him okay with the sudden change.

Suddenly Gabriel scooped him up in to his arms, and twirled around with him in the air in a burst of excitement. Gabriel. Shouted, adding his own rich voice to the mass, "I _knew _you could do it, kiddo! Knew it!"

Jonas could hardly keep himself from exploding. First, all the realness of every new thing around him, the memories despite their beauty never were quite this vivid, now Gabriel was older than him, and looking at him with something akin to _pride_.

"Gabe- wha-?" was all he managed to say before Gabriel seemed to notice someone.

Gabriel settled Jonas into his arms, so he could more easily carry him and said, "You hold on to that thought kiddo . . . But I think my dad's gonna answer that one anyway." And he began to walk towards the sitting people.

As he got closer his eyes were drawn to a rather ordinary looking man for some reason. There was nothing spectacular about this man, he had a small scraggly beard, bed head, slightly skinny figure, in disheveled clothing, bunny slippers, he seemed to be completely absorbed in his work, but he had a presences about him.

He was typing on a rather clunky looking laptop, surrounded by stacks of paper. The man picked up a steaming hot drink in one hand, still seeming to be in deep thought as he stared at the screen. Jonas realized that they were heading straight in his direction, and apparently so did the man.

The man looked up and smiled at them as they came nearer, "Gabriel, Jonas sit with me."

Gabriel snorted a bit and said, "I was planning on doing that all ready, Dad." placing Jonas in one of the seats as he sat down himself.

Jonas looked at them both wide eyes, "W-who are you?"

The man pushed an uneaten chocolate cake to Jonas, who had for some reason not seen it and said, "Well in the long run most would call me God, but for the purposes of this conversation you can call me Chuck." The ma- Chuck noticed that Jonas wasn't eating the cake, "Go on, that's all for you."

Gabriel piped up, "If it makes you feel any better, I'm still Gabriel." But it really didn't.

Jonas had like Lilly heard of God before, but it was like the word animal. Something that was a concept, but they had no idea what it actually meant. Though once he became the receiver he had been given several memories as to what God was exactly.

Numbly he began to eat the cake barley regeresting the rich flavor, "I'm I dead?"

Gabriel chuckled before saying, "Would have been if I hadn't popped ya back about a thousand years or so." Jonas noticed he was eating candy that hadn't been there before. Did the package say M&M's . . . ?

Chuck gave Gabriel a scolding look and said, "Gabe, be gentler with him."

"La la lila la, I can't hear you over how awesome I am, lolli lo la." Gabriel sang.

At first Jonas felt scared for Gabriel. Being so rude to God surely would end badly, but Chuck only smiled indulgently, and shook his head lightly.

Chuck looked back at Jonas and said, "I suppose you would like some answers."

Jonas nodded slowly.

Chuck stretched for a moment then said, "Okay, so think of me as a writer, except I can't hit the backspace key. All I can do is delete the entire document if I don't like it."

Gabriel looked up from his candy, and added helpfully, " 'cept ya don't press a button, you start a huge ass flood."

"Yes Gabe, but that's not the point." Chuck said warily, "Getting back to the point what if I don't want to delete the document? What if I've put a lot of good work into most of it, but the recent half has gone really wrong? You happen. A great character who will save the plot, and bring back the main idea of the story."

"And Pops, wanted to make sure you went right, so he sent me to watch. As a baby." Gabriel seemed rather put out at that last part.

Chuck looked at him sternly and said, "Gabe give it up. I was not going to send you to that place as an adult."

"You sent me to Mary as an adult! And that turned out just fine!"

"You nearly scared the poor woman to death! Showing up out of know where, using 21st century slang on her, and then you thought giving her a flowers and a _platypus_ would make it all better."

Gabriel slumped in his seat and grumbled, "Well it turned out all right in the end."

Chuck gave him one last withering look, before turning to Jonas again, "In the beginning I would have thought you were the plot was going wrong, but now I know humanity needs all that knowledge, and even pain to truly thrive so you were a bit of Jonah and Eve all in one, but now you've done your job. The stories back on track. Any questions?"

Jonas had so many but could only say one. "What do I do now?"

"Well, I've set up an extremely large bank account in your name, have a house ready for you, placed Gabriel as your appointed legal guardian as well as in the metaphysical since, despite my better judgment, but what I want most for you to do is to go and experience all the beauty of the world for yourself not just by proxy. _That's _what you're supposed to do with that money."

Gabriel then added on with a slightly darker look in his eyes, "What I want you to do is what all you humans do. Try. Live and try."


End file.
